Wednesday, June 14, 2017

On June 14 the latest report on core retail sales was announced, and showed the largest decline since January of 2016. And in addition, this drop in one of the economy's major indicators is providing the Fed an interesting dichotomy on the same day they are to announce the latest decision on whether to raise interest rates.

Headline retail sales tumbled 0.3% MoM in May, the biggest drop since January 2016 (and all
the weather-related malarkey that was blamed on).

In response to this bad news for economic growth, gold and silver both spiked higher with the dollar falling over 50 bps back below 96 on the dollar index.

These strong moves in both gold and silver could be a prelude to even higher prices dependent upon the Fed's decision later today on whether to hike rates, leave them at current levels, or perhaps even to provide guidance that the central bank may be leaning back towards a policy of easing as economic indicators clearly point towards a slowdown if not outright recession.